Commenting on yesterday’s Spending Review and Autumn Statement, Damian Hinds said:
“This Autumn Statement demonstrates that security remains the government’s top priority and stays central to policy making. This means protecting economic security by taking the difficult decisions to live within our means and bring our debts down, and protecting national security by defending Britain’s interests abroad and keeping people safe at home.”
Public spending plans set out in the Spending Review mean there will be a surplus of £10.1 billion in 2019/20 – that’s higher than was forecast at the Budget and Britain will be out of the red and into the black. The Spending Review also announced there will be no cuts in the police budget with real terms protection for police funding, and confirms the Government’s commitment to spend 2 per cent of our national income on defence.
In total, the Spending Review commits £4 trillion pounds over the next five years, with a commitment to both reform and rebuild, with:
Full funding of the Five Year Forward View put forward by the NHS itself as the plan for its future, with the first £6 billion delivered up-front next year.
The biggest real terms rise in the basic State Pension in 15 years sothe basic state pension will rise by £3.35 to £119.30 a week next year.
Additional funding for social care. Councils with social care responsibility will be able to set a special fingfenced precept on council tax of up to 2%. The Chancellor also announced an additional £1.5bn for the Better Care Fund.
New apprenticeship levy to deliver 3 million apprenticeships. This will ensure large businesses share the cost of training, but businesses with a wage bill below £3 million won’t have to pay in.
The largest ever investment in free childcare. From 2017, 30 hours of free childcare will be funded for working parents of three and four year olds, and £10,000 of childcare costs supported tax-free. To support nurseries, funding for the sector will be increased by £300 million.
There were a number of elements in the Autumn Statement and Spending Review of particular note for East Hampshire and the local region, including:
Confirmation that Whitehill & Bordon will be included in a wider multi site Enterprise Zone along with Chertsey and Basingstoke, which is a major boost for attracting inward investment to the town. Click HERE for more information.
Protection of the basic per-student funding in sixth-form colleges, as well as real terms protection of the schools budget. This is especially significant for Hampshire because almost all sixth form education is in sixth-form colleges.
A series of measures to widen home ownership, including extensions of Help to Buy, liberalisation of shared ownership rules and the biggest house building programme by any government since the 1970s. This is of particular significance as East Hampshire has become one of the least affordable places outside London for would-be buyers, with the average home now costing more than 12 times average earnings
a further £164m to relieve congestion on the M3 J2-4A by 2017
£2m of LIBOR fines money to be used to relocate the Royal Marines Museum from Eastney Barracks, Southsea into the Historic Dockyard at Portsmouth
Damian continued:
“There is much in this Autumn Statement to welcome for East Hampshire; an area that contributes to the £228 billion generated by the South East for the national economy – that’s £20 billion more than in 2010 – and is part of a region with the lowest rate of unemployment in the country.”